


Fallen Rose

by 1Kamiro7



Category: Destiny (Video Games), RWBY
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25950409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1Kamiro7/pseuds/1Kamiro7
Summary: Two guardians, stranded on an unknown world. A mother and their daughter, one Eliskni, the other Human. But this world is familiar in ways neither would have expected, and darkness lingers not only in this new world but also inside themselves. [Origional guardian class][Eliskni Guardian][Fanfiction of 'Remnant of a Rose', by pabs0101's brother][Also on Fanfiction]
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Stargated

**Author's Note:**

> This story is heavily inspired by ptabs0101's brother - Remnant of a Rose. Go check that out along with its sequel; Remnant of an Iron Rose (Which got adopted). Some parts of this fic will be excerpts from that, so if you've read that story, you'll find some things familiar. I will clarify now:
> 
> I did not originally create this story idea in its entirety, this is a Fanfiction of a Fanfiction.
> 
> Backstory(!):
> 
> A century or few prior to the events of Destiny, Guardian Angela "Angie" was resurrected by a Ghost. She was the first of many things.
> 
> The first Eliskni to be risen. The first guardian of the Templar classification.
> 
> The first guardian to wield darkness alongside their light.
> 
> Their ghost, Lantern, was transformed into a Phantom to compensate this mixture of opposing yet similar powers. Angela became admired for her powers, and respected for her control, and not succumbing to the darkness within her. She became the Templar Vanguard of her small faction, partially by default but mainly to her many accomplishments. She also formed a relationship with Cayde-6, where they began dating before eventually marrying, Angela taking the name Angela 66.
> 
> Angela fought in the Battle of Twilight Gap alongside many other heroes, and in the aftermath gaining the admiration of Guardians and Fallen alike, her old House of Crosses reforming and naming her their Kell.
> 
> (This is where the crossover comes into play)
> 
> Not long after Summer Rose was resurrected as a Guardian, she met Cayde and subsequently Angela. Angela became a mother figure to Summer, soon adopting her as her surrogate daughter. Together they silenced the Black Garden's heart, slew Crota, defeated Skolas (with fury as he was the main perpetrator to the initial extinction of Angela's Fallen house), Stopped Oryx and deactivated SIVA (If I ever get to 'Remnant of an Iron Rose', it won't be called that or something similar, and, will have a completely different storyline). They also achieved feats such as raiding the Vault of Glass with Summer's fireteam; Nero, and sometimes with Angela's old fireteam; Excelsior (A notoriously flamboyant team of guardians).
> 
> And that is where we will start our tale of two worlds…
> 
> EDIT (9/06/2020):
> 
> How the actual HECK Bungie?! How?! How did you make a DLC (Beyond Light) so close to this idea I've had for YEARS (Like since 2017/2018)? How? How?! HOW?!
> 
> So please just note I did not get the idea for Angela and Templars from that. Just to be clear.
> 
> Rest in Peace, ptabs0101's brother. You will be missed.

An alarm clock began blaring on the side of a bed in the Tower's living quarters. Two veteran guardians began to stir in their shared bed.

"Cayde… turn off the alarm…" a voice drawled.

"It's on your side pumpkin." a metallic voice yawned.

"…Oh yeah." A grey-skinned, three-fingered hand emerged from the covers and slapped the top of the clock, silencing it. Angie then sat up in the bed and stretched her four arms, a prolonged yawn escaping her spiky-toothed maw. Her glowing blue eyes were barely open, but she could still see Cayde's own metal face. Angie gave a small smile.

"What is it Cayde? You have that look on your face."

"Sweetie, I always have this look on my face. If you haven't noticed, but I am a robot and would take great offence if you hadn't." Cayde said, mock-hurt. Angie smiled wider and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh no, I noticed. Your face may stay the same but there's always something behind those eyes of yours." Angie leant over and kissed his cheek. she then swung herself out of the bed, followed by her armour materializing over her boxers and singlet.

"Heh, you got me." Cayde raised his hands, getting out of bed himself, his own armour also materializing, including his hood of course. "I was thinking you and I go and take a day off."

Angie raised her eyebrow again. "A day off?" she questioned suspiciously.

"Yeah, you and me. When's the last time we've done that?"

"Ten days ago. You, Summer and I went sparrow racing on Venus." Angie said as she made her way to the kitchen and ready a pot of coffee.

"Yeah, but summer was there. Mama and Papa bear can't get the real fun on if the little cub is around."

"You know I still don't get these hints Cayde. I have different anatomy to humans and don't even know how my own species 'Does It' as you say." Angie then poured four mugs of coffee. "You still need to talk to Summer about it, though."

"Ughhhhh." Cayde groaned, taking a coffee. "When will you stop asking me that?"

"When you do it." Angie smiled, picking up the other three mugs.

Cayde faltered. "Y'know that is actually a pretty good point. But wait!" Cayde hopped in front of Angie, hands outstretched.

"Yeah?" Angie asked, amused by Cayde's antics.

"What if I get Lux to do it?" Cayde then took a sip of his coffee. "This is lovely by the way."

"Thank you, and no. It should not be Lux's burden to talk to her innocent teammate about human procreation." Angie told him as the pair emerged into the tower courtyard. Cayde thought for a moment before speaking again.

"What about Ikora? I bet she'd be good at it." Cayde suggested

Angie chuckled. "It'd bet she'd also be good at lodging you in a wall. Which she will do if she had to explain it to Summer." Cayde drooped at that. The two Vanguards entered the tower control room to meet their fellow commanders.

"Ikora! Zavala! May I say you are both looking radiant." Cayde said to them, only for them to stare blankly back.

"Don't worry you two," Angie apologized as she brushed pass Cayde, "I brought coffee." Angie then handed a cup to each of them.

"Thank you, Angie, it has been a long night…" Zavala looked over at Cayde to watch him spill some coffee on his breastplate, "…and it appears to be an even longer day," He sighed. His attention was then called over by a Titan reporting in.

Ikora took a large sip of her coffee. "Thousands of years and humanity has still yet to come up with a better invention than this dark elixir." Ikora joked. Angie chuckled before taking a sip from her own coffee.

"So what have we got today?" Angie asked, leaning over Ikora's shoulder to look at the tablet she held.

"The Cabal seems to be mobilizing forces towards Mercury, they most likely are trying to take the planet from the Vex or trying to make the Vex lose focus on Mars."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"…Either way, according to reports, there is something there that they are taking great lengths to hide from us specifically. Not the Vex, but us. Which, as you may think, obviously does not sit well for me." Ikora informed Angie. "Most of our more seasoned Guardians are already dispatched, so we're going to have to send…" Ikora paused to sigh, "...Her."

Angie cocked her head. "Oh, come on, she's not that bad."

"Many guardians would beg to differ," Ikora debated.

"Look, if I go with her, will you stop complaining?"

Ikora paused in thought. "No. But I promise to complain less."

"I'll take it." Angie turned to where Cayde was trying to wipe more spilt coffee off the table. "Sundance!"

Cayde's ghost, Sundance, materialised in a flash of light. "Yes, Sugar?"

"Keep Cayde out of trouble."

"You got it, sweetheart."

And with that, Angie sent out to get her 'daughter', Summer Rose.

* * *

"Summer!" Angie rapped on the door to Summer's quarters in the guardian dormitories. "Summer wake up we have a mission!"

Angie then heard an alarm go off, followed by a gunshot, then followed by voices and finally the exclamation of "Mom?!" and hurried footsteps to the door. The door slid open to reveal a short female human hunter, with a white cloak and black hair that had red tips.

"Mom!" Summer threw her hands into the air.

"Hi Summer," Angie chuckled as she embraced her daughter. "You ready to go on a mission to see what the Cabal are doing on Mercury?"

"Yeah!" Summer cheered, armour materializing.

* * *

Two ships sped towards the Vex-converted planet of Mercury. At one point in time, the planet was covered in grasslands and trees with pink leaves, but during the collapse, the Vex undid this and turned it into a machine world.

It wasn't very out of character for the Cabal to try and conquer another world, let alone a planet-sized equivalent of a calculator. But as Ikora had told Angie, the Cabal were hiding something from the guardians, meaning whatever it was, it would be better in their hands than either the Cabal or Vex.

"I'm booooored!" Summer complained much to Angie's amusement. "Why did we have to take this mission again?"

"Because Summer," Angie said in her authoritative mother voice she had gotten very good at, "All other qualified Guardians are occupied with other tasks, Ikora was going to just send you but I came when she agreed to complain about it less."

"Sounds about right…" Drei, Summer's ghost, agreed. "Plus, both ships have stealth drives installed."

"Wait they do?" Summer asked, surprised by this fact, not remembering either Cloud Errant or Death to Kells having a stealth drive.

"Yes Summer, they do. We salvaged most of what we could from Eris' ship when it was destroyed. I had the stealth drive installed in Cloud Errant whilst I, _acquired_ , a new one from the House of Devils." Angie explained. "Say what about the rest of my degenerate species, but they sure do make great stealth tech."

"Wait, when did you install it? I don't remember getting told about it." Summer asked.

"She told you about it whilst you were drooling over that new ship with all those guns," Drei replied.

"I was not drooling!" Summer exclaimed indignantly, "I was just appreciating its design!"

Angie snorted, bringing one of her free hands up to stifle a laugh.

"Mom!" Summer whined, embarrassed.

"There there Summer, I am not judging you for your… particularly passionate interests." Angie told her. Summer groaned, Angie, picturing the blush that would be across the white-cloaked hunter's face.

"It's not that bad…" Summer pouted.

"The fact that you spent more time than necessary to go over your weapons while talking to them like they were your children disproves your claim," Drei argued. Cue another groan.

"Oh, come on guys, lay off the girl," Angie's ghost, Lantern, spoke. "We all have our own interests so give her some slack."

"You're just saying that because you're an explosives-driven pyromaniac Lantern," Angie joshed.

"I will neither confirm nor deny if that statement is true or false." Lantern declared. They all laughed at this before turning their attention back to the approaching Mercury. A minute later they were flying into the small planet's upper atmosphere. It was at this time Angie glanced at her scanners and froze.

"Lantern, did you get the Death to Kells serviced like I asked?" Angie asked, comms line still open to Summer and Drei.

"Yup, full vault access, weapons and armour fabricator operational…"

"What about the scanners?" Angie interrupted.

"They're definitely working, why do you ask… oh." Lantern stopped when she checked the scanners for herself.

"Mom? What is it?" Summer asked as their ships descended closer towards the surface.

"My scanner is picking up a large mass of enemies," Angie answered.

"What kind?" Drei inquired.

"…All of them."

"Wha…"

"Fallen, Cabal, Vex, Hive, Taken, they're all here, right in the deadzone our scanners can't pick up from Earth," Lantern clarified, "And by the looks of those Cabal signal jammers, this is what they were hiding." She pointed out the satellite towers clearly of Cabal origin on the horizon.

"So, they were hiding a four-way battle from us? Why?" Drei asked, perplexed by the situation.

"Most likely because of what they're fighting over," Angie suggested. "If guardians got involved, they'd most surely be able to claim the prize. The only darkness sectors on Mercury are all in the Infinite Forrest, meaning that just a fireteam or two would be able to clear out the forces long enough for proper reinforcements to arrive."

"So, what do we do?" Summer asked. Angie put a hand to her chin in thought for a moment before deciding.

"Activate stealth Drive. We're going to see what the trophy is. Lantern, Drei, bypass the Cabal jammers as we go." Angie ordered. Summer and Drei complied, activating the stealth drive they got from Cayde and falling out of sight. Angie and Lantern activated their own drive, the outside of their ship becoming imperceptible by the naked eye and most scanners.

Approaching the site, signs of battle began appearing. Corpses of the four factions of darkness littered the ginger sands. Rounding a spire, there was a currently a skirmish between Fallen and hive. A Knight and Captain were engaged in an intense swordfight. They took quick note of the battle before descending into a tunnel that would lead them to where the site was. Even through the darkness, they saw flashes of Cabal Slug Throwers and Vex Torch Hammers.

"Approaching site now," Drei announced as they were partially blinded by the sudden change in light. When their vision adjusted, they gawked at what they saw.

The Fallen House of Devils Ketch, Heavy Cabal Troop Freighter, a Hive Warship and several major Vex gateways, all with minor ship and troops swarming around them. That alone was shocking to any Guardian, but what really took the cake was what they were all surrounding.

"What is that…?" Summer asked distractedly.

The structure that towered over the surrounding battlefields was like some kind of ancient pre-golden age Aztec temple, but made from dark stone and metal with power sources and mechanical parts sprouting all over it. At the peak of the temple was a large ring, easily three times the size of one of their ships, and bearing semblance to a Vex transfer gate, but not quite the same.

"From what I'm picking up, it's some kind of transfer gate…" Lantern answered. "But it isn't Vex in origin and is by far the largest one on record." Lantern went silent for a moment before speaking again. "By the Traveller… The gate is Human in origin and accepts the same activation keys as parts of Rasputin!"

"WHAT?!" the other three exclaimed.

"If I had to guess, this was most likely a Golden age invention to transport various things to far-off colonies. Probably made by Clovis Bray since it responds to Warmind codes."

"That's amazing…" Summer breathed in awe.

"Not so amazing assuming that if anyone else here captured it, and got it functioning, that they'd have access to what most likely would be a forgotten Golden Age colony," Lantern continued. "And if they were to reverse engineer it…"

"We need to report this to the rest of the Vanguard immediately," Angie concluded. "Lantern, Drei, how long until that last jammer is bypassed?"

"Thirty seco…" Drei began before cutting himself off, "Oh no! I'm picking up fluctuations in the power conduit!"

"Shit," Both Angie and Summer cursed simultaneously, knowing that this was what happened last time before the stealth drive fail whilst they were both crammed into Eris' ship. A few pulses of yellow and Cloud errant faded back into visibility.

The whole battlefield seemed to pause for a second before it resumed, a sizeable amount of the forces now dedicated to blasting Summer's ship out of the sky.

"Um, guys?" Lantern spoke up, "Remember how you said all the darkness zones were in the forest? Well, there's actually one here too..."

There was a slight pause between the guardians as they realized just how dire the situation they were in really was.

"Summer! evasive manoeuvres! They're going to try their best to not let us out of here alive!" Angie suddenly shouted over the comms before decloaking her own ship and diverting power to the shields and thrusters. Summer obeyed her mother and did the same, still cursing at 'Cayde's dumb stealth drive'.

Two Fallen Skiffs fell behind Cloud Errant and began bombarding it with plasma cannons. Angie Flanked the ships before tearing into them with her own cannons, sending them into a spiral towards the ground.

A nearby Tombship cruised by, launching off void blasts which caught the Guardians' ships, violently rocking them.

"Both Fallen and Cabal have signalled for reinforcements, Guardians," Drei informed.

"And those Cabal ground troops are looking for an opening to blast us with flak cannons," Lantern added. Angie gritted her spiked teeth in frustration.

Summer was doing her best to focus on the task at hand and not mentally berating Cayde for not properly making a stealth drive. But then, an epiphany hit her.

"Drei! Activate the transfer gate!" Summer pitched left and began heading to the gate.

"WHAT?! Are you crazy?!" Drei almost screamed. "Actually, don't answer that, but there is no way I…"

"Gate accessed, firing up the portal," Lantern interrupted.

Drei did the ghost equivalent of deadpanning, "I hate you all."

"Everybody hold on!" Angie yelled as the two ships sped for the brightly ignited transfer gate that shone a milky blue.

The battle around them once again paused as the portal illuminated the surrounding area. It resumed, this time with every force possible attempting to cripple Cloud Errant and Death to Kells. Summer took the brunt of the attack as she was in the lead, but Angie still took a considerable amount.

"Breaching Gate in 3…

2…

1…

0."

And then, darkness.


	2. *Cocks Gun* Planet's Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest in peace, ptabs0101

"Preparing for Resurrection…"

Angie gasped as she shot up from the floor. A throbbing feeling indicated that she'd just been revived.

"Lantern, report."

Lantern flashed into existence, an Adonis shell surrounding her core.

"Eleven hull breaches of varying severity, small electrical fires about the drop racks, and the comms are in need of replacement, no other significant damages to report." Lantern noted dutifully.

"Why did I need to be revived?" Angie asked, moving off the floor.

"Because you died, of course." Lantern quipped sarcastically. Angie shot her a glare. "Heh, okay, okay. The transfer gate liquified your insides, it's likely it was DNA-locked, meaning that only humans, awoken or exo could go through unscathed," Lantern transmatted a fire extinguisher into two of Angie's hands, who used it to begin dousing the fire.

"Is Summer okay?" Angie asked, concerned for her daughter's safety.

"I haven't been able to make contact with Cloud Errant, but it does appear on our scans along with both Summer and Drei's light signatures."

Angie breathed a sigh of relief. She finished up extinguishing the fires before moving to the ship's troop racks.

Angie had gotten Death to Kells by stealing a fallen skiff and then commissioning Amanda Holiday to make it jumpship-worthy. She had to admit she was glad she did because the troop racks certainly did come in handy, along with a number of other things like the spacious interior and heavy weaponry.

Entering the interior of the rack, she moved past a large black metal box that she kept a digitalized walker tank, which she had also stolen and remodelled, and positioned herself in one of the racks, helmet materializing. Activating the rack, it lowered her into the vastness of space, her only tether from drifting away forever was the metal handle she clung to.

It was a scary thing for a guardian to be lost in space without a ship. They wouldn't be able to die from suffocation, hypothermia or starvation, meaning they would just keep drifting. The few guardians who had been miraculously rescued were all mentally unstable.

Dispelling those thoughts, Angie spied Cloud Errant, pushing herself off from the rack to intercept the jumpship. Gliding along soundly for what felt like a minute, Angie finally collided with Summer's misfortunate vehicle.

"Lantern, are you able to patch us into Summer's close-range comms?" Angie asked as she crawled on the outside of the ship and around to the ramp.

"Sure." Lantern replied before getting to work. "Just a second... and... got it! Patched in!"

"Summer? Drei? Can you read me? Are you okay?" Angie frantically asked into her helmet. There was no response at first before a crackly voice spoke up.

"Yeah! We're okay Mom!" Summer spoke. Angie breathed a sigh of relief as she finally reached the ramp, activating the outside controls before floating inside. As the door closed, the artificial gravity kicked in, and Angie took her helmet off.

A decision she immediately regretted as there was apparently no air in Cloud Errant.

Quickly shoving her helmet back on her head, Angie moved through the ship until she found summer gripping her helmeted head in frustration.

"Summer?" Angie asked, making the younger Guardian spin around to her. "What's wrong?"

Summer let out a frustrated groan before answering Angie's question. "Cloud Errant has several hull breaches, which is why there's no air."

"I was wondering about that..." Angie said quickly before Summer continued.

"The comms are crippled, meaning I can't call for help, the shield generators are shot to hell and most likely won't stand up to a single shot, the warp drive is inactive and there's a leak in the engine! The guns can't even ﬁre without the risk of blowing themselves up along with it!" Summer ranted. "The power conduit also got some damage, but it could still be easily repaired."

Angie blinked behind her visor. "Yeah, that is pretty bad. It would take weeks to ﬁx the whole ship, even if we had the proper tools and materials, which we don't."

Both of them idly looked around the broken ship before Summer spoke up.

"Duct tape?"

"Duct tape."

* * *

After patching up what of the engine they could, the two guardians moved back to Angie's, more habitable, ship to discuss their next plan of actions, when their ghost and phantom appeared.

"We have news~!" Lantern chirped.

"Good or bad?" Summer asked.

"Both!"

"Let's start with the bad news then," Angie instructed, her helmet dematerializing.

"Well, for starters, we're no longer in the Sol system." Drei continued from Lantern. Both guardians froze as their gazes wandered to Drei. Their silence was broken by a groan from Angie as she pulled her hands down her face.

"I should have expected this." She groaned, "You said a forgotten golden age colony, but not this..." She looked to Drei and Lantern again. "Any way of knowing how far we are from Earth?"

Lantern shook her 'head'. "The constellations a vastly different from Earth's and we have no way of identifying any of the stars to see how they've moved, or are even the same ones."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." Summer shook her hands in front of her, signalling to stop the explanation. "There are _other_ solar systems?"

"Yes Summer, there are other solar systems," Drei said exasperatedly. "It's rather common knowledge that there are, it just wouldn't be cost-effective to scout any of them, seeing as the scouts would have to get past multiple forces of darkness, and then risk even finding one."

"I guess that makes sense..." Summer looked away in thought, making a little pout as she did. Angie thought it was incredibly cute.

"Also, our initial boot of the gate may allow all the baddies we left back on Mercury with a way through." Lantern said to them. "But, the silver lining to it is also why it's so bad: this is most likely a golden age colony."

"Which means we can get golden age technology!" Angie turned to summer with glee, "Summer, do you know what this means?!"

"I can rub this in Cayde's face!" Summer happily answered. Angie faltered at her daughter's priorities.

"N-no... well, you can but that's not what I meant." Angie cleared her throat. "If we were able to reclaim golden age technology, think of what it could do for the city! That's if it survived this long..."

"Well!" Summer clapped her hands together. "We aren't getting anything done up here, why don't we go down and see what we can find?"

"Oh, you guys are going to love this," Lantern said as she took control of the ship, the two guardians feeling it rotate so they could see the planet. "It certainly resembles the Earth, but the moon is broken!"

"It is?" Drei asked. "Interesting. I would have thought the planet's gravitational pull would have restored it, should it have been destroyed during the collapse."

The hunter and the templar moved to the spacious cockpit of DtK to see where they would be spending the foreseeable future.

"Y'know," Angie began, staring calmly at the planet, "I never get tired of seeing a new planet. It's just so... serene."

Summer didn't respond. Angie turned to see why only to observe a pained longing on her face as she took it in.

"Summer? Summer are you all right?" Angie put a hand on her shoulder.

"I..." Summer gulped. "I-I've been here before..."

Angie removed her hand and stepped back. So did Drei and Lantern, all three in shock.

"What?"

"This... this is where I died."

* * *

Putting the... sensitive, conversation on hold, Summer moved back to Cloud Errant before they made their way down to the planet, touching down their ships in a forest clearing. They silently made their way outside, helmets off and not speaking a word. Angie really wanted to console her daughter, but it was hard to know what to do after the revelation that Summer came from a lost colony of humanity.

So, after setting up a camp and getting a fire going, the two simply sat on toppled logs in an uncomfortable silence. Every time Angie tried to say something, the words caught in her throat before they could come out, leaving her to resume her guilty silence.

Summer had been growing more and more frustrated. How did she _know_ that she had been here before, how did she _know_ this was where she died? Drei found her in the Russian Cosmodrome, not some faraway planet that may or may not have golden age technology.

Well, at least that last question was cleared up. After reaching the surface, Lantern and Drei had picked up signals. There was a colony here, but they certainly weren't golden age. From what they could gather, this civilization's level of technology was only slightly more advanced from the time when humanity had first encountered the Traveller.

Speaking of the phantom and ghost duo, both were a bit on edge. On one hand, there was Angie, they had no idea of how to help her in her current predicament. On the other hand, was Summer, who was quite clearly in a bad mood, or as close as she could get to one. Summer was not traditionally a person to carry anger or hatred, but the few time she had lost her temper never ended well for any on the receiving end.

Movement in the shadows beyond the campfire finally urged Angie enough to say something.

"Something's watching us. Thirty, and counting." She counted, not looking up to see Summer's response. She still could see the monsters clearly, her innate nightvision allowing her to pierce through the darkness. "They look like wolves..."

"Beowolves." Summer corrected. Angie looked up to see a certain glint in Summer's eyes. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but Angie knew it was something.

"We'll talk about this later, okay?" Angie subtly moved her hand to her magnetic hip holster. Summer gave a small nod, a reluctant agreement. Summer was just as uncomfortable to talk about the subject as Angie was, if not more so, but they had to talk about it.

Whipping it from her hip, Angie drew a hand cannon of her signature _Royal Straight_. Four distinguishable hand cannons that had become just as famous (or infamous depending on who you asked) as her lover's _Last Word_. The Jack was the first to be fired, quickly followed by The Queen. A beowolf dropped with each shot fired, their smouldering necks still burning with arc and void energy.

Summer followed suit and drew a sealed _Thorn_. In a flurry of white rose petals that earned her the 'White Rose' moniker, Summer was behind the now charging beowolves, letting loose a volley of gunfire, dropping a chamber's worth of beowolfs, their bodies crumbling before the guardians' very eyes.

By now Angie was also firing both The Kind and The Ace alongside her other two hand cannons. What the Templar found peculiar was that no matter where she shot these creatures of darkness, they all fell with a singled shot. Legs? One. Chest? One. It irritated her, like missing a piece of an invisible puzzle. Before long, she heard the clicking of the Royal Straight's triggers, signalling she was out of ammunition.

"Summer! I need to reload!"

"So do I!" Summer called back, hitting a beowolf with the butt of Thorn before sinking a knife into its skull. Angie looked at the remaining beowolves and made a choice.

Since becoming a Templar, Angie had worked rigorously to develop both her Light and Dark powers. All four of her arms began crackling with arc black ark energy.

Titans had their Strikers.

Warlocks had their Stormcallers.

Hunters had their Arcstriders.

Angie had her Raijū. Named after the monster of Lightning, her super did something similar.

Angie let out a roar like the sound of thunder, halting the beowolve's advance, before fifteen black lightning bolts struck down the remaining monsters, leaving only three left.

As Summer finished off the few that were left, Angie took a moment to collect herself. She had forced that super a little too much. Being connected to the darkness allowed her to call upon supers whenever she needed to, but unless she waited for her powers of light to balance it out, the aftereffects could lead her to be a tad... homicidal.

Angie hadn't pushed it too much with that last super, but the black arc energy were telltale signs that she hadn't balanced it. Pushing the grimmer thoughts out of her head, she sat back down on the log as Summer came over and sat next to her.

"Mom are you okay," She asked, putting a hand on Angie's spiked shoulder pauldron.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm... I'm fine." Angie nodded slowly.

"The lightning was black."

Angie put her arms around Summer, pulling her into a hug. "Hey, it's fine. I only went a little bit too far, no murderous intentions." She stroked her daughter's hair. She could feel Summer quivering ever so slightly. Angie looked up into the now starry sky.

"Now, let's hear what you remember, okay?"

* * *

Her eyes opened and a burst of power flowed through her body, but it was not her own. Some of her children had died. That was to be expected for they were always hunted down by the lesser humans. The blood and souls of poor fools fed her through the feasts of her adopted children, and they did well until some Huntsman or Huntress spoils it. Though the taste of their soul when those same Huntsmen fall was just so exquisite.

But these losses were different. The Darkness that made up her children were tainted or to be more accurate, purified. When her children were slain, she simply reuse their essence to spawn more but it was now impossible with what was done to them. To find the cause for this, she tapped into the memories of her fallen children, an ability that she rarely used these days.

Her blackened heart stopped for a second when she caught a glimpse of the ones who had slain her children. One had four arms, grey skin and glowing blue eyes, probably some kind of faunus, they were always getting weirder these days. But the other one...

Pale complexion, reddish-black hair and silver eyes.

"It couldn't be," Salem snarled. It wasn't possible. She made sure that woman was dead! She had sent an entire army of grimm to kill that woman so why was she still alive!? It wasn't just that. That woman was wielding powers that were long forgotten and could be mistaken for the Maiden's, but she knew better. But as she played the memory over and over, she began to see something else. Something that both unnerved and intrigued her. The faunus, she wasn't purifying the grimm like that damned Summer Rose was, she was drawing their power into herself. She tried to see if she could tap into the memories of the ones the faunus killed but found herself unable. They were gone, removed from the cycle.

"Who are you...?" Salem asked as she focused on the figure's abnormal face.

* * *

"…Maybe you were one of the settlers of this planet and escaped through the Gateway when the Darkness attacked," Drei suggested gently as the two guardians, ghost and phantom discussed Summer's death on this world, Remnant as Summer had said.

"Maybe," Summer conceded, but a small part of her thought that the Ghost was wrong.

"Okay, that's enough of Summer's past that she doesn't remember." Angie stood up. "You two," She pointed at Lantern and Drei, "What have you found?"

The two creations of light explained how Remnant was divided into four kingdoms, unlike how it was during the Golden Age where everyone was united under one banner. The northern kingdom Atlas (formerly Mantle), the eastern kingdom Mistral, the western kingdom Vacuo, and the central kingdom Vale, where the four currently were.

Then there was Dust. Dust was known as a naturally occurring energy propellant that the people of Remnant relied on. It had similar properties to Glimmer but was not as effective as a Glimmer due to Glimmer being more potent and not limited to functioning within the atmosphere of a planet. Dust, on the other hand, couldn't function outside Remnant's atmosphere, precluding the possibility of space travel.

It also removed the possibility of using Dust to repair their jumpship. They would have to reconfigure any Dust tech that they find to run on Glimmer instead so they would be compatible with the Cloud Errant. But first, they would have to find the needed parts.

"Well, we've still got Death to Kells, so getting around won't be so hard." Angie jutted a thumb at her and Lantern's ship. "We could just leave Cloud Errant here in stealth mode and focus on finding parts for the... flyable ship."

Summer looked to her mother, and then to Drei.

"She's got a point you know," Drei said.

"So where do we find the parts?" Summer asked.

"I'm afraid that the parts we require can't be found locally and even if they are, we lack the funds to purchase them since I highly doubt they would accept Glimmer," Drei shook his head, "The technology on Remnant isn't on the same level as ours so there's not much we could do."

"We could rob the military."

All three of them turned to Lantern to star at her for what she just proposed.

"What?! No! We can't just Rob the military- Summer?!" Drei noticed his guardian already running to DtK. "I should have expected this. You agree with me, right Angela...?" Drei turned to find that Angie had disappeared. Looking back at the ship he saw her walking up the ramp.

Despite all possible laws of physics, Drei's eye twitched.


	3. Pirates from Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's rob the military!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May as well tell you about the Templar class now.
> 
> Air movement: Directional air dash  
> Class ability: Phase (Temporary dimension shift)  
> Subclasses:  
> Arc – Raijū (Super: Rolling Thunder): calls down lightning strikes on target enemies, trees are tailored for either high number of enemies or high amount of damage.
> 
> Void – Fenrir (Super: Shadow Prowler): go down on hands and feet, coated in void energy. Speed is dramatically increased and can crawl on walls. Trees will make it so that either hitting an enemy will dill little damage, but tether and suppress them, creating a well of blinding energy, or become invisible whilst a mirror image is created to confuse opponents.
> 
> Solar – Ifrit (Super: Juggernaut): Grow in size (about as large as a Fallen Captain) and conjure a blade of solar energy. Trees can either give two blades for higher damage and attack speed as well as a whirlwind attack, or one blade that increases damage, range and duration with each kill (Will also prevent guardians from respawning until super ends)
> 
> Stasis – Wendigo (Super: Frost Wraith): *Subject to change upon release of ‘Beyond Light’ D2 DLC* control a clone made of stasis that can explode into stasis energy multiple times before expiring.
> 
> And here are the stats for the Royal Straight exotic hand cannons.
> 
> Intrinsic perk – Suit: Each gun fires a different element type.  
> Exotic perk – The Fifth Card: hitting an enemy with each element type will ready an explosive round that will detonate into all element types. (Animation fires all guns at once.)
> 
> Now, let’s get going!

"You cannot just raid a military no matter how justified it may be!" Drei admonished. "They need those to help defend themselves from the Grimm!"

The two guardians were tailing an Atlas Military convoy with DtK, stealth drive active of course.

“Well, it’s not like we’re going to bust in there and say; ‘Hey, aliens are real, my mom’s one of them, and we need stuff to repair our spaceships’.” Summer said back, loading a _Randy’s Throwing Knife_ that Angie had gotten for her.

Drei made to make a retrotort but stopped when he realized he didn’t have one, which Summer laughed at. Angie smiled listening to the two, whilst carefully piloting the jumpship.

“Okay you two, radio chatter says we’re approaching the compound soon, so stop your bickering,” Angie told the two. Summer stuck her tongue out and Drei rolled his eye before disappearing in a burst of white particles.

“ **I must say,** ” Lantern said over the link, still inside Angie’s head, “ **The cybersecurity here is criminally disappointing. I’ve gotten in and out over three-dozen times and have left about seventeen harmless viruses in the core systems.** ”

“Yes, well, stop doing that.” Angie told her phantom, “They could do without you needlessly terrorizing them.”

“ **Aw, but it’s only like making faces at somebody through a one-way mirror!** ” Lantern defended with a whine.

“Ooh, ooh!” Summer grabbed Angie’s seat and bounced up and down. “Make a virus that swaps their quotation marks with their ‘at’ symbol!”

“ **Summer...** ” Drei groaned.

“ **Too late Drei! Already done! MWAHAHAHAHA!** ” Lantern laughed maniacally, eliciting another groan from the ghost.

A few short minutes later, the convoy pitched down to land in a fortified base, surrounded by forest. From the outside, base appeared impenetrable, with the high walls and automatic turrets on top of them. The base was also situated in the middle of a clearing so they would instantly spot anything approaching the base on foot, be it grimm or otherwise. If that wasn't enough, there were a multitude of cameras of different varies and functions. These surveillance devices would no doubt catch anything that the guards on the walls didn't.

Unfortunately, the guardians weren’t approaching on foot. Nor were they going anywhere near the walls. They were dropping right into the lion’s den.

“ **According to logs, this base is where they store their experimental equipment, emphasis on the ‘experimental’.** ” Lantern informed.

"How experimental are we talking about?" Summer inquired

" **Either too expensive or too dangerous for mass production,** " Drei answered.

“Then probably exactly the right stuff for us.” Angie interjected, loading a battery her _Good KARMA_ , another one of her personal weapons*, this one taking the form of a short stock with four long, flat ‘barrels’ coming from it, all painted orange. The pair moved to the drop racks to disembark the now stationary DtK. Before doing so, Angie tossed Summer one of her modified smoke bombs. Using her powers of darkness, Angie had made a slightly altered version of a Shadowstalker Hunter’s smoke bomb, which reacted to movement and not a basic expiry time. Essentially, the less you moved, the less you were seen. She still hadn’t figured out a way to fire weapons without deactivation the invisibility, though.

“What are we looking for here guys?” Summer asked.

 **“They have several cannons that were too unstable to place on an aircraft and it seems the scientists of Atlas were working on a shield generator but both of these never went past the development phase. None of them is of any use to us intact but their components could be altered to our specifications and repair the Cloud Errant's weapons and shields.”** Drei answered methodically.

“Neat.” Replied with a short nod.

“When you said that their security was not as advanced as we’re used to, I wasn’t expecting something so... primitive.” Angie tried not to be insulting, but really, it was the most accurate description.

“ **Yeah, it’s pretty bad.** ” Lantern, metaphorically, sucked in a breath. “ **I mean, why would they connect all their networks together? That’s just a sign saying: Cripple my entire cybernetic capabilities!** ”

“ **Honestly, Atlas is either too stupid or too arrogant to think that anyone could hack into their network,** ” Drei commented. In Summer’s opinion, she didn’t know which was worse.

The guardians activated both their stealth and dropped down to the landing pad without so much as a sound.

Making sure none of the soldiers had noticed their presence, they began moving to the largest building in sight, as it’d be most likely where they would find what they needed. They began by making a pit-stop at a nearby hanger to acquire engine parts. They had a few close scrapes when they had to remove a few things that were still affixed to the populated ships.

Once all the parts were turned into data and stored in either Lantern or Drei, they crept into the central building. As they made their way to the elevator that would provide the guardians with access to the lower levels of the facility, they caught gossip from the scientists about an Atlesian specialist arriving earlier that day. Summer largely ignored them, despite Drei’s complaints, but Angie made a mental note to have Lantern look them up later.

They also encountered a combat android. Lantern had likened the Atlesian Knight 200 to that of a guard frame, albeit with severely limited combat prowess.

“You move on,” Angie whispered to Summer, “I want to see what else they have on this layer.”

Even though Summer was still invisible, Angie’s mixture of eliksni physiology and guardian training allowed her to see her daughter’s affirmative nod, before breaking away to the elevator.

Angie continued scouring the floor until she heard Summer’s voice through the comms.

“ _Oops_.” Summer said suddenly. “ _Whaaat? This isn’t the bathroom; I am so lost right now!_ ”

Angie slapped her the visor of her mask. Summer had gotten caught.

‘ _Traveller damn it, Summer._ ’ She thought, moving hastily.

“Lantern, lock down the elevator and block all communications coming from around Summer’s position!” Angie ordered.

“ _Wait! Mom how are you going to get down h..._ ” Summer began, but her voice was cut off when Angie’s vision flashed before her surroundings became white and formless, with smoking black outlines. Angie did a small hop, fell through several floors, and reappeared beside Summer and a white-haired officer-looking soldier that was recovering, most likely from one of Summer’s attacks. “Oh right, Netherealm...” Summer muttered.

One of Angie’s abilities as a Templar was to briefly shunt her physical form into an alternated dimension she had nicknamed ‘The Neatherealm’. It mirrored the real world rather well, but it was devoid of life, colour, and was a bit flexible on what was tangible or not. The only downside to this place was; it hurt like a bitch to stay in for more than ten seconds, and she couldn’t leave anything there or else it would disappear. Angie was still sour about losing the four-dozen magazine in the middle of a firefight when she had first tried it.

The soldier got up and made her counterattack with the assistance of a white glyph, propelling forward and lunging with a sabre. Angie brought up a hand wreathed in a Shadow prowler claw to black, making the woman to stop short and actually look at Angie, taking in her fill figure. The woman’s eyes lingering on the second set of arms and lack of two fingers. Angie used the woman’s shock, and one of her lower, free, arms, she grabbed the woman’s neck and held her up.

“What... are you?” She choked out, grabbing at Angie’s hand to try and pry it off.

‘ _Ah, finally._ ’ Angie thought, ‘ _A good reason to scare the living daylights out of somebody.’_

Angie’s helmet disappeared, revealing her grey skin, four glowing blue eyes, split jaw and green dreadlocks. She watched as the woman’s pupils dilated upon revealing her face.

“ **Fallen** ,” Angie replied, doing her best guttural voice to making sure she imprinted the worst idea possible of her horrible species into this Remnan’s mind. She threw the woman into the wall, her helmet repapering and turning back to summer.

“So, what did you think of my intimidation tactics?” Angie asked the others through the comms, cancelling any noise coming out of her helmet.

“AWESOME!” Summer cheered, pumping a fist and drowning out any complaints from Drei. Angie smiled inside her helmet and patted Summer’s cloak-covered one.

“Okay, okay. Now, you can deal with the officer while I go get the parts.” Angie commanded, hearing a groan from the soldier behind her.

“Gotcha.” Summer agreed, putting away Randy’s Throwing Knife, and taking out one of her _actual_ knives. Looks like she was wanting a fun fight then. Angie broke away to leave Summer to do her thing.

* * *

** 52 Hours Later; Atlesian Report **

Pvt Cole Johnson: Sir! (stands up and salutes)

Cpt Ford Blu: At ease, soldier. (Pvt. Johnson sits down) Where were you the moment the incident occurred?

Pvt Johnson: Specialist Schnee was debriefing our unit on the new security protocols that were going to be implemented before she dismissed us. We were about to return to our assigned posts when it happened.

Cpt Blu: You didn't receive any transmissions from the comms?

Pvt Johnson: No sir. The radios were as silent as the grave. The only way we knew that something's wrong was when some of us saw Specialist Schnee engage an unknown assailant, a second appearing later to aid the first.

Cpt Blu: Please describe the assailants to me.

Pvt Johnson: Let's see… The first one was definitely a female from what I could tell from her curves. She wore light armour but not like the kind you usually see freelance Huntresses wear. It looked military grade, but I think it has been customized to fit her preference.

Cpt Blu: Go on.

Pvt Johnson: She had a helmet on. It looked like a pilot's helmet. I guess she wore it to hide her face. And for some reason, she wore a white cloak over her armour with the hood up.

Cpt Blu: It's not uncommon for Huntsmen and Huntresses to be…liberal with their uniform. And the other?

Pvt Johnson: Well, that’s where it gets a bit harder. To start, they had four arms, and only three long fingers on each hand. Their helmet was had two v-shaped visors and curved backwards, there was a spiked pauldron on heir left shoulder, a long red scarf, the kind you’d find somebody wearing in Vacuo, their armour made no indications of gender, and... oh right! The gun she was carrying looked and functioned like some kind of high-calibre railgun.

Cpt Blu: Interesting. Did anyone else move to engage the hostiles as well?

Pvt Johnson: No sir. We thought for sure that Specialist Schnee had it under control with the first intruder, and with how fast they were, our CO said we would only get in the way.

Cpt Blu: Your commanding officer made the right choice. It's not wise for people with limited training to get in the middle of a bale between Huntresses. What else did you do?

Pvt Johnson: We tried to alert the rest of the facility of an intruder in case the original hostile wasn't alone, and now we know she wasn’t, but we couldn't get a signal out. It took us a moment to realize our communications were being jammed.

Cpt Blu: Yes, I have seen similar reports that state the same.

Pvt Johnson: Since we had no hope of sending an alert through the comms, our CO ordered some of us to go up the list so we could manually alert the base. But we were interrupted when we heard an explosion.

Cpt Blu: Which coincide with some of the missing supply of Dust.

Pvt Johnson: Yeah. We thought the explosion meant that Specialist Schnee took care of the first intruder but as it turned out, we were wrong.

Cpt Blu: …

Pvt Johnson: The intruder didn't have a single scratch on her, and she approached us so calmly like she knew there was nothing we could do to stop her, which I figured was the truth if she managed to defeat Specialist Schnee.

Cpt Blu: And what happened next?

Pvt Johnson: What do you think happened? The second one showed up and took us out like we were nothing! I was out like a light in fifteen seconds of her showing up, and I was one of the last ones! And when we all came to, well… you know what happened next beer than I do.

* * *

“Ah we can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind! Cause your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, well they're are no friends of mine!”

Summer and Angie sang along to the song that was playing from DtK’s speakers as they danced to it. The guardian duo were making their way back to Cloud Errant after their, marginally, successful raid on the Atlesian compound. Even if they had tripped the alarms, fought a specialist, turned their own androids against them and fended off an ensuing grimm attack. Regardless of that, the had what they needed, and they weren’t followed. They had even managed to grab a few crates of dust on their way out.

The song played out and the guardians laughed as the next song on the playlist came on but being all danced out, they chose to just sit down at a table inside DtK.

“Hey Drei,” Summer began, “I gotta ask, why’d you want to bring all this dust with us?” she motioned to the crates laying around.

"While not on the same level as Glimmer, Dust has some uses that only the most experienced Warlock could accomplish," Drei explained his reasoning for their extra cargo. "Another interesting fact that I learned is that Dust could also modify the effects of a person's Semblance."

“And you want to know how it reacts to our light and my darkness,” Angie guessed. Drei nodded in confirmation.

“But why did we need so much of it?” Summer asked.

“It’s the same reason we don’t let Lantern help you experiment,” Drei answered.

“I-wha-eh?!” Summer blubbered. “I don’t blow things up!”

“On purpose,” Angie pointed the tip of the beer bottle she had materialized at her daughter before taking a swig.

“Pfft. Name one time I unintentionally blew something up.

"That me you wielded a Knight's cleaver and tried to channel the arc energy through it," Drei pointed out.

“Ooh! What about that time you tried to manifest the Golden Gun as a fusion rifle!” Lantern reminded excitedly. “That was amazing!”

“Or that time you wanted to try to stop one of Lux’s Nova bombs with one of my Frost Wraiths,” Angie added.

“Technically that was a disintegration!” Summer corrected pointedly, sticking a finger at her mother, who gently swatted it away.

“Don’t point at people Summer.”

/

Ozpin was having a good day, all things considered. Other than a small upset with the field trip to Forever Fall, which smoothed itself out, everything had been going fine.

That was until he received a call from his old friend, James Ironwood. Picking up the scroll and silencing the ringing, Ozpin put the scroll up to his ear to see what the general had to say.

“Hello, James.” Ozpin greeted steadily.

“Ozpin, there is something you need to see,” Ironwood said, completely skipping formalities, as usual, "A few days ago, one of my facilities was attacked."

A beep and Ironwood had sent Ozpin files concerning the attack to his computer. Ozpin pulled them up and looked them over.

It was no doubt the White Fang that attacked the Atlesian facility. That was what Ozpin thought. They were being bolder with their activities lately. There was one thing that bothered the Beacon Academy Headmaster though.

Out of all of the videos and pictures being displayed, none of them was of the incident itself. There were mostly of the aftermath of the attack. With all of the Atlesian military's security, he figured that Ironwood would present him with video evidence of the incident or images at the very least.

"There is no digital proof of the attack itself. The attackers somehow managed to hack into our network and erased their presence from the records," the general explained, "If it wasn't for eyewitnesses and the missing military property, we wouldn't have known it actually happened."

Ozpin steepled his hands before him, fingers interlocking as he deliberated over the implications of this.

It was one thing to hack into a school's (ones for civilians, not Huntsmen) database to change your scores, as Arc did which led to the events of Forever Fall, but hacking into the security network of the best military on Remnant was another thing entirely.

"That's not the only thing," he added, "According to witnesses, there were only two."

"There are not many who are brazen enough to assault an Atlesian base with such low numbers.” Ozpin finally commented.

"Yes but apparently these people had the skills to back it up," James replied, "We suspect that they were Huntresses gone rogue after one easily dealt with one of my best agents and the other the rest of my men."

Another beep and recordings of soldiers reporting on the intruders. Ozpin watched them as his eyes grew wider and wider.

“Impossible,” Ozpin muttered.

“That’s what I thought.” Ironwood agreed, having heard Ozpin. “Not only do they describe the late Summer Rose Perfectly, but whatever that... thing, was with her clearly was neither human nor faunus.” Both headmasters went silent for a while. “Ozpin, we need to face the possibility. If Salem...”

“James.” The one word from Ozpin stopped the other man in his tracks. “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We’ll investigate it first _before_ we reach any... hasty, conclusions.”

“...Okay.” James agreed. And with a click, a beeping began to signal the end of the call. Ozpin set his mug down to contemplate the information.

They would have to deal with this very carefully...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good Kama – Sniper Rifle – Power – Arc  
> Intrinsic perk – Battery Pack: This Weapon does not need to be reloaded  
> Exotic perk – Railgun: Charge this weapon up to fire an explosive shot that bypasses shields
> 
> (Weapon Based on KARMA-1 from the Cycle, go check it out!)


	4. Raiding Rewards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tis be a shortie~ish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be changing some aspects of canon RWBY lore for the sake of the story, so if you’re about to go: “Um, but actually...”
> 
> I probably changed it on purpose, so don’t get too iffy.

Angie hummed rhythmically as she piloted Death to Kells towards another Atlesian base. They had recovered a significant amount of materials for on their first raid for Cloud Errant, but not enough to make it fly without risk of breakage.

So while Summer stayed and tuned up her ship, Angie was going to go to a shipyard and strip enough hull to patch both Cloud Errant’s gaping holes, and a few of DtK’s smaller ones.

Angie and Drei had both agreed this was the best course of action, as allowing Summer and Lantern to tinker in the same room together were what had led to the Tower needing a new barracks. Add a new unstable element to the list and they’d be lucky not to wipe Vale off the map.

Angie slowed down as the base came into view from around a mountain. Angie had to admit, they had picked a good spot for the base. Right on the side of a mountain, it reminded her of Lord Saladin’s keep. Natural defences aside, the compound itself had an impressive array of ships. Angie had Lantern briefing her on each type, and which ones were suitable to either use directly or compound their hulls.

Sure, this would be a noticeable blow to the Atlesian navy, but nothing crippling. Angie looked at it as an attempt for humbling. She wouldn’t strip every ship clean, and in return, the Atlesians would take it on the chin.

Dropping out of DtK, Angie softly landed on the chilly asphalt and duck behind a bullhead as two guards wandered by. She had chosen to forgo stealth for this raid, as mind games were one of her specialties.

She was honestly very tempted to have Lantern play ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, and go on a full-frontal assault, scaring the shit out of every Atlas soldier on the base.

But instead, she chose the more subtle approach of waving at every camera she passed and having Lantern freeze the camera’s before she got there. This meant she couldn’t be caught in the act, and the Atlesian had something fun to watch afterwards.

* * *

“Well. I didn’t expect this to end like this.” Angie commented three hours later whilst being surrounded by unconscious bodies and solar flames were burning away at least three ships, other various damage types having destroyed more.

Smacking her lips and gazing around, she gave a nod before signalling for Lantern to bring their ship down.

* * *

Ozpin massaged his forehead after the report James had just given him.

 _Apparently_ one of the thieves from the previous raid had shown up again, this time in an Atlas shipyard. They had made no effort to conceal their trace and wound up destroying more than half of the ships there.

“It was obvious that they had hacked the cameras and alarms,” Ironwood’s voice reappeared in Ozpin’s ears, “The guards monitoring them would have alerted the rest of the compound immediately. What’s more, was that there was no trace of tampering in the code. Either they’re just this good, or, have somebody on the inside...” Ironwood finished grimly.

“James, please, we still can’t jump to conclusions here,” Ozpin said.

“But it would also be unwise to simply dismiss the fact that it could indeed be her.”

“Then what do you make of her new, four-armed, companion that seemingly is able to use elemental abilities without the use of any obvious dust?”

Ironwood had no response to that.

“I know you don’t want to admit it, and I don’t either, but much like we need to suspect Summer Rose is alive and turned against the kingdoms, we also must face the terrible prospect that Salem has created sapient grimm.” Ozpin said. “What’s worse, that these two may be connected...”

“What do you mean, Ozpin?” Ironwood questioned with good amounts of suspicion.

“What if Ms Amber wasn’t the first victim of that technique?”

Ironwood took a sharp breath. What Ozpin was implying was frightening.

“So you think that Salem _stole_ Summer’s soul?” Ironwood clarified.

“It is merely a possibility, not a certainty.”

“Well, I want to get to the bottom of this.” Ironwood closed the speculation decisively. “We’ve found what they stole on their first raid by checking missing items from previous inventory reports. That, with the new attack and stripping of ship hulls, we suspect that they are trying to make something, some kind of vehicle. What kind, we don’t know, but we already have calculated their next most likely target.”

“Good. Should I send Qrow to help?” Ozpin asked.

“That will not be necessary, we will be dispatching a new team of specialists.” Ironwood then cleared his throat. “Plus, Qrow could be... emotionally compromised.”

“Hm.” Ozpin hummed. “I see your point, but Qrow may become even more adamant about revealing that it isn’t Summer.”

“And if it is?” Ironwood asked.

“Then we may have to start fearing for the worst.”

* * *

** 1 Week Later... **

Summer and Angie were back in Death to Kells, this time on their way to an Atlas dust refinery. They didn’t actually need any of the dust, but the machinery they used to refine the dust was far more useful to them, as certain parts could be used to substitute Cloud Errant’s own fuel processors.

“This should be the last place we need to ‘borrow’ things from before Cloud Errant is safely flyable.” Lantern informed the rest of the group. The guardians nodded whilst Drei grumbled about them stealing. It wasn’t like this was the first time the had stole things. Angie stole things from the Fallen regularly, heck, most of the stuff in Death to Kells was stolen from them.

“Now, are you sure that what we’re grabbing is useable for our level of fuel?” Angie asked.

Drei sighed, unable to think how he had let the situation get this out of hand. “Not the machine itself, but the parts it has to make it worth more to grab it in one go than to get them from multiple places.”

“The only thing out of the ordinary is the unusually high amount of chatter going on around the refinery,” Lantern added.

“What do you mean?” Summer asked.

“No idea,” Lantern replied, “But something’s going on down there. Be ready.”

Arriving at the refinery, Angie had the Royal Straight holstered around her waist, and Summer was holding up Thorn. Much like their first raid, they activated stealth and silently dropped down into the facility. Unlike the first time, or second for that matter, the refinery wasn’t owned by the Atlas Military, but instead by a private company and supported by the said military. Some of the subsystems were on different servers, but Lantern and Drei assured it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle with ease.

“Now Summer,” Angie said through their comms, no noise slipping through her helmet, “This time, do not drop your invisibility, and pay attention to your surroundings.”

“ _Yes, Mom..._ ” Summer’s voice groaned back. Rounding a corner, avoiding two... Faunus? Angie believed to be what those humans with animal features were called. She then made it over a gangway that was suspended above large running boilers, Angie entered some kind of break room to find five people in there. The reason these people were so interesting to her was because of how different they were to the rest of the people in the facility. Instead of the usual overalls like the workers, or the bulky armour that the guards wore, these people were a little more expressive with what they wore, if not all following the same colour scheme.

First was a dark-skinned faunus with a dog tail that wore a white double-breasted coat, red ascot and dark blue trousers, and had some kind of boomerang on their back.

Next, a pale man with little hair and tattoos on his face. He was also wearing a white coat and blue trousers, except his coat was shorter, and he had a red sash as well as silver bracelets and necklaces.

A bulky tan girl with messy brunette hair stood next to the man, large enough that Angie could have mistaken her for an unarmoured titan. She had a white crop jacket that only covered her right arm, silver metal vambraces, a dark grey shirt, white pants, and no shoes to speak of.

The other girl of the group contrasted the giant rather well. While having similar if not darker skin, she was far shorter and had must of her hair shaved except for a short brown mohawk with a blonde crest. She had a sleeveless white double-breasted vest, dark blue shirt, white shorts and dark blue chaps which exposed part of her thighs.

The last was a well-built fair-skinned man with brown hair. He had, yet again, a double-breasted sleeveless white coat, white pants, a rabbit’s foot on his belt and a four-leaf clover badge on his chest.

These were certainly no regular grunts, actually, they bore more resemblance to the person who Summer fought bake at the first base.

“Lantern, bring up the helmet footage from the first raid, I want a look at whoever Summer was fighting.”

“ **On it.** ” Came the reply from the phantom.

“ _Mom, is something wrong?_ ” Summer asked through the comms, most likely already having reached the refiner part she was tasked with.

“Hopefully not, but I think there are some people here doing a job below their pay grade...” Angie answered just as Lantern brought up the footage. The white-haired ‘huntress’ matches the style of these people. From Drei’s report of that mission, it meant that these people were Atlas Specialists. Not as much of a pushover as regular soldiers.

“Summer, I need you to keep digging out those parts, my share too,” Angie spoke into the comms.

“ _What? Why?!_ ”

“Remember that woman you fought back at the Atlas R&D base?”

Summer made a noise of confirmation.

“Well, now there are five of them. I’m going to keep an eye on them, just in case something goes wrong.”

* * *

“Ugh!” Harriet groaned in annoyance as she tapped her leg impatiently. “Our first mission as a specialist team and we’re sent to guard a dust refinery in the middle of nowhere!”

“Well like you said, it is our first mission,” Vine replied calmly as he meditated. “Don’t expect anything too grandiose.”

“But we’ve been here for five days, Vine! And nothing’s happened!” Harriet threw her hands in the air. Elm suddenly slung her arm around the small woman, crushing her bones as she squeezed her.

“Hey, come on Harriet. It isn’t all that bad. Just think what we’ll be doing three years from now! We’ll be the best team in Atlas!”

“Might I remind everyone _why_ we were sent here?” Marrow interjected, “These ‘Rouge Huntresses’ have caused mayhem in two other Atlas facilities and defeated a fellow specialist. I think it’d be best we’d all stay on guard.”

“Hey, easy there Marrow,” Clover patted the faunus’ shoulder. “Just because we’re a little lax doesn’t mean we’re slacking off. Let’s just do our job, and surely we’ll be able to handle it.”

“That’s if they even show up,” Harriet mumbled.

“Look, it’s about time for a sweep of the base, so how about we do it a little early so we can stretch our legs?” Clover suggested. All the others gave their agreeing responses, picked up their weapons and headed out of the room.

* * *

“Hmm...” Angie cupped the chin of her helmet in thought.

“ **What’s wrong, boss?** ” Lantern asked her guardian.

“Something about them is bugging me. Like a distant part of my mind is attempting to show me a hidden memory...”

“ **Should we follow them?** ”

“Yes, we should...”

Angie gripped the pipes on the wall and began scuttling around the room, slowly as not to break her active camouflage. Trailing the specialists didn’t do much, but the veteran Vanguard knew better than to completely dismiss a potential threat. After all, doing so in the past had led to the creation of the gun Summer now had. Angie still bore regret for the guardians her inaction had caused.

Angie dismissed her helmet briefly to smack her cheeks. Mind on the present guardian!

“ **You were thinking about it again.** ” Lantern remarked.

Angie sighed as her helmet returned. “Yes. I was.” Returning to prowling after the specialists, Lantern gave a sigh.

“ **He wasn’t your fault.** ”

Angie didn’t respond.

“ **Angela. Listen to me; He. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.** ” Lantern repeated.

“I know, I know, it’s just...” Angie said weakly.

“ **No just. Only here and now.** ” Lantern interrupted. “ **Keep your eyes on the prize, Boss.** ”

Angie heeded the instructions and returned her attention on the patrolling. Soon, the group had led her outside into an open part of the refinery. Angie did a weapon check on them.

Boomerang.

Chakram.

Warhammer.

Full arm bracers.

Fishing Rod? What?

So mostly a melee group of specialists, not a good mix if they wanted to beat her. If a guardian decided to get into close range with an enemy, it usually meant disintegration one of three element types, four for herself. Wait, now that she thought about it, was freezing and then shattering into millions of unfathomable pieces counted as ‘disintegration’?

“Excuse me, Drei?” Angie asked into the comms.

“ **Yes, Angela?** ”

“If I killed with stasis, would it count as disintegration?”

“ **I don’t _think_ so, but I'm not sure...**” Drei answered. “ **I’ll look it up** ” Drei went about doing that whilst Summer was still humming and taking apart the refinery. Angie turned her attention back to the specialist’s conversation, now taking a break on an overlook of the yard.

“So, who do you think theses rouges are?” the large woman, Elm, asked aloud.

“Probably White Fang. Did you see the four-armed one?” the short girl, Harriet, leaned on the railing. As the two women were discussing the possible identities of Angie and Summer, the brown-haired man, Clover, had taken out his ‘weapon’ and was making practice casts with it, whipping it around before trying to hook something across the yard. He kept repeating this action, harmless in and of itself, but it gave Angie a weird feeling. It was the same kind of feeling whenever she went somewhere with high amounts of temporal energy, somewhere with the ability to change fate.

Angie was so caught up in her musings that she almost didn’t see the hook coming directly at her.


	5. Learn Your Lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Hewhoreads on Ao3, asking if they need to read anything else to understand this story: You don’t have to read anything else to get what’s going on here, though I still greatly encourage reading Remnant of a Rose, it’s a great fic. If anyone is confused or has lore/story questions, it’s most likely intentional, and I plan to reveal it later in the story.
> 
> :]

** To Hewhoreads on Ao3, asking if they need to read anything else to understand this story: ** **You don’t have to read anything else to get what’s going on here, though I still greatly encourage reading Remnant of a Rose, it’s a great fic. If anyone is confused or has lore/story questions, it’s most likely intentional, and I plan to reveal it later in the story.**

**:]**

/

The road was a ghostly ribbon:

a strange violet hue.

The sycamore trees thrashing

as a frenzied wind blew.

A dark cloaked horseman

appeared on the horizon’s edge.

He whipped his horse forward;

this horse almost flew.

The pounding hooves echoed

down the cobbled road.

The madman charged forward

with his deadly load.

They never caught the horseman

who murdered her father that night.

He shot his pistol once then the old man died.

No're was he ever seen again

after the red cobbles dried.

They never found his stallion

with nostrils flaming fire'

who flew like a dragon

until the prey expired.

The girl wept and moaned

at her window. Always watching for him.

Watching the winding road; she could redeem his sin.

A kiss my darling sweetheart, kiss and let me fly.

His shadow was imprinted on clean cobbles.

His scarf around her neck but nothing made things right.

The devil surely wanted him

and death breathed down his trek.

They searched swearing they'd catch the wretch yet found

no trace of him. The girl she smiled sadly.

For now he rode the wind.

- _A poem by Blakeley Notch, following the Death of Dredgen Yor by the hands of two guardians..._

/FALLEN ROSE/

Angie flipped around a protruding pipe to avoid a scatter of bullets that bounced off the metal she now took cover behind. How the Traveller did she end up in this situation? Oh, that’s right, the man with the fishing pole had _accidentally_ made a large swing back and by sheer luck had _accidentally_ hit the exact spot where Angie was clinging to, causing her to need to move out of the way and drop her active camouflage.

The specialists noticed almost immediately, forcing Angie into a firefight. Summer had offered to help, but the Templar Vanguard had ordered her to keep gathering the materials they needed. Besides, any fight Angie was in was going to be one-sided.

Her side.

The only problem that now presented itself is that of not wanting to (permanently) harming them or any of the other guards, let alone the civilians on the processing plant.

“Lantern,” Angie asked as she fired a few shots of one of her hand cannons to deter the approaching force, “Can you give me the Aura levels of those specialists, as well as any information on them that you can?”

“ **Sure thing!** ” Lantern answered. The sound of Lantern doing whatever she did played before the phantom’s voice returned. “All done, the aura levels should now appear like any other enemy threat reader would.

“Thanks,” Angela said quickly before vaulting the pipe and landing on a guard, pushing them against the ground before grabbing him by her feet and threw him into a group of other guards whilst using her four arms to support her. Next, she generated a suppression field grenade in her bottom left hand and tossed it in front of another pack of guards. They shielded themselves to hopefully be protected from the detonation, but instead of exploding like they thought it would, it instead blossomed out into a purple bubble that began sapping they energy. Shortly after, they had all fallen to the ground unconscious as the grenade collapsed inwards on itself. With all the present threats taken out, Angie turned her attention to the five specialists.

All of them had their weapons drawn and aimed at her, unlike Angie who was casually holding hers at her sides. As a test, she gently lifted the solar ‘King’ hand cannon to watch their reactions. As she expects, they tensed and leaned forward, ready to fight. Angie returned it to her side with an audible chuckle.

The short tan girl scowled. “What’s so funny?!” she shouted at Angie.

“You’re all so jumpy,” Angie replied, amused. “First day on the job, is it?”

When none of the specialists answered, Angie was given her answer.

“Really? This is your first mission?” Angie laughed. “My mistake, I’ve been thinking you were going to be actual opponents.”

“What does that mean?!” The short girl snapped. Angie grinned behind her helmet. Good, they were taking the bait and beginning to become frustrated.

“Well, if you’re all just beginners, I’ll just have to even the playing field,” Angie then holster her stasis, void and solar hand cannons, leaving her only with her arc one. “Show me what you got.”

The short girl let out a war cry and charged at Angela at lightning speed, intent on pummelling the eliksni with the help of her exoskeleton. Angela had to give her an A for effort, she certainly _tried_ to hit her, and did so an unlaughable and unremarkable speed. Angela would have even bet that it would’ve hurt if the girl had actually hit her. But Angela regularly sparred with titan legends, who all loved to used swords, and knew the only way to actually beat their opponents was to get close to them. Fast.

The girl realized that when Angela moved around her supersonic punch with relative ease, grab the back of her neck and sinking a full cylinder of hand cannon ammo, point-blank, into her chest.

“Harriet!” the other woman called in dismay.

“Overconfidence,” Angela announced, ignoring the other specialist and letting the girl drop to the floor, groaning in pain and almost completely out of aura. “Should have tested the waters, watched how I handled with only one gun. Instead, you rushed in, thinking I was an easy target.” Angel turned to the others. “Who’s up next?”

The answer to that question was: all of them.

Quickly, Angela limbo-ed under a thrown boomerang from the dog faunus, leading into a backwards cartwheel and scuttling away on three of her arms as she fired with the fourth. The remainder of the specialists took cover behind either side of the entrance into the facility.

Angela pushed away from the ground and clutched onto a pipe, dropping another smoke grenade to cover her movements. The specialist began talking to one another in hushed voices, unaware that Angela could still hear them thanks to both her armour and Eliksni physiology.

“Clover, what’s that plan?” The faunus asked the man with the fishing pole.

“First thing first,” the man replied, “we need to get Harriet out of there, there’s no telling what could happen to her with the rogue inside.” He looked to the large woman and pale man across the entranceway. “Elm, Vine, you go in first, move past Harriet, guard Marrow and me while we get her outside and attempt to apprehend the rogue if possible.”

“Got it, Clover.” The tall woman nodded. “I’m going to knock their head in for mocking us.”

“Always the brutish one, aren’t you Elm?” the pale man asked dryly.

“Shut up Vine.” Elm shot back.

Above them on the interior of the roof, Angela’s eyes narrowed as a grin sprouted on her face.

‘Oh good,’ She thought, ‘A weakness to exploit.’

Quickly rounding the corner and fanning out slightly, Elm and vine entered with a hammer drawn and, what Angela assumed were arms constructed out of aura, at the ready. They crept forward slowly, scanning their surroundings for the faintest sign for Angela. When they neglected to look directly upwards, Elm signalled for Clover and Marrow to follow in.

Oh, what a mistake that was.

As soon as Clover had slung Harriet over his should and began to move back to the entrance with Marrow, Angela dislodged her feet’s armoured talons and descended silently towards the specialists, more specifically Vine. Angela wasn’t sure why Elm looked up when she did, maybe it was the slight whistling Angela gave off from falling, maybe the specialist saw her out of the corner of her eye. Whatever it was, Elm saw her, and instead of alerting Vine with a warning, she instead quickly shifted into action and used Vine as a makeshift springboard to launch herself at Angela.

Vine exclaimed in shock and anger whilst Elm only focused on Angela. Unfortunately for the tan skin huntress, was Angela’s aerial mobility. With a quick evade to the side, she left Elm in bewilderment and in a prime position to attack. Which Angela capitalized on. Knocking Elm right out of the air and back onto Vine, crushing him.

“Ah!” Vine exclaimed as Elm’s mass was thrown on him. “Get off me Elm.” He growled at the large girl.

“Ugghhuh...” Elm gurgled as she groggily stood up whilst clutching her dizzied head.

She, nor Vine, had any time to recover though as Angela leapt back up into the air, leaving a small, slightly cylindrical object to roll along the floor towards them. As it came to a rest in front of the two specialists, both Elm and Vine stopped to look down at it. They finally caught on to what it was when it made a beeping sound and a red light appeared. They each tried to push the other out of the way to clear themselves from the impending blast zone, which ended up leaving both of them going nowhere.

The grenade detonated, sending a blast of ice spreading out.

“Elm! Vine!” Marrow exclaimed as he watched two of his three remaining teammates become encased in an opaque violet ice.

“Teamwork.” Angela’s voice echoed through the room. “They failed that from the start. Instead of assisting one another to reach their singular goal, they instead opposed one-another, in the end dooming them both.”

Marrow and Clover whipped around to where Angela’s voice was originating from to see a slightly more incorporeal version of her with the same opaque violet ice that had trapped Elm and Vine growing off parts of her. She began charging at the two on all sixes, fully intent on barrelling into them.

“STAY!” Marrow clicked his fingers and pointing towards Angela, causing her to freeze to a halt as if she was trapped in her own ice. When he was sure that she was not moving, he let out a sigh of relief and raised a finger to his ear to activate his comms. “This is special agent Amin, requesting security to assist in securing apprehended assailant.”

There was some sort of response before Marrow nodded.

“Thank you.” He then turned to Clover, who was near the entryway, setting down Harriet.

“I'm glad that’s over, but there’s still possibly another rogue huntress and we’re down more than half the team,” Clover spoke.

“Should we return to Atlas with just this one?” Marrow questioned.

Clover thought before slowly forming a nod. “That may be for the best, we...” he cut himself off when he saw it.

Her. Another Angela. Charging at the distracted Marrow with a double-barrelled shotgun.

“Marrow look out!” Clover called a warning, reaching out a hand. Marrow turned to see Angela still running at him.

“STAY!” Marrow quickly activated his semblance to freeze Angela in place again, succeeding in doing so. Marrow then glanced to Clover, flashing a smile. “Just in time, huh?” Marrow asked.

...

Right before the ice-covered Angela tackled him with her full body. Whilst pinning the struggling Marrow to the floor, it detonated into another explosion of ice, now freezing Marrow too.

“Marrow! Dammit!” Clover yelled, brandishing his fishing rod.

“Not being satisfied with one had.” Angela mocked, now unstuck. “Instead of leaving my wraith stopped, you wanted to freeze me as well, and in the end, you lost both.”

Clover flung his fishing rod at Angela, attempting to hook her. Instead, Angela dodged out of the way and, with great skill, attached a flashbang grenade to the end of Clover’s hook. As the hook reeled back towards the specialist, he tried and dislodge the flashbang, only succeeding when the concussive armament was too close.

Going off, clover covered his eyes in pain of the bright light, his ears now ringing. Trying to blink away his blurred vision, he scanned around for Angela, who had kept on the move. Believing to have spotted her, he flung his hook at the location, only to snag a protruding pipe instead, and receiving a swift kick to the chest by Angela herself, who as it turned out, was far closer than Clover’s mirage.

“Patience is a virtue, y’know.” Angela said to the down Clover, who was struggling for breath since the kick severely winded him. “You could have retreated and waited for the effects of the grenade to wear off, would have lasted only a few seconds, but instead, you chose to charge right into action.”

Angela finished the one-sided conversation by knocking clover out with another kick, this time to the face causing his aura to break away.

Stepping away from the unconscious specialist, Angela radioed Summer.

“Summer, did you get everything we came for?”

“Yep!” Summer’s chirpy voice appeared, speaking back. “Me and Drei finished up and now we’re sitting up in DtK!”

“Drei and I, Summer.” Angel corrected with a faint smile and a shake of her head.

“Yes, _Mum_...” Summer drawled, eliciting a giggle from Angela.

/FALLEN ROSE/

“...”

“...”

“So are we going to...”

“Yes, we’ll send Qrow now, Ozpin.”

“Thank you, James.”

“I'm still worried about that four-armed creature though, especially after retrieving that bodycam footage from the first facility.”

“I am as well, James. Those black rose petals were not reassuring...”

/FALLEN ROSE/

**I wish I could write more but I want to gent a new chapter out and this seems like a nice intermission-able spot**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could write more but I want to gent a new chapter out and this seems like a nice intermission-able spot


	6. Meetings...

**_Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness._ **

**_Because when you light a candle, you also cast a shadow._ **

- _Fallen Rose_ -

“Okay Summer, you need to secure us a space to store our ships,” Angie said over the pair’s radio to her daughter. “Lantern has already sent favourable subjects that may be able to supply us with the right location with little questions asked.”

“ **What will you be doing Mom?** ” Summer asked, whilst piloting cloud errant.

“I think... I’ll go on a walkabout,” Angie replied, a toothy smile playing on her face.

“ **Wouldn’t people notice you?** ” Drei asked.

“I already have a disguise ready,” Angie replied, “The uses of glimmer are simply remarkable.”

“ **You programmed yourself new clothes?! Drei, we could do that?!** ” Summer exclaimed, excitement in her voice.

“ **Yes, Summer, as I have explained (numerous times),** ” Drei mumbled that, “ **Glimmer can be used to synthesize more than weapons and armour. AND ARMOUR ARE A TYPE OF CLOTHES!** ”

“ **Then why don’t people wear them all the time?** ” Summer asked as if it was obvious.

Angie chuckled at the two. “All right you two, no more arguing. I'm setting Death to Kells to autopilot to follow Cloud Errant. Park em’ somewhere safe, and then get permission to park them somewhere else. Angie out.”

And with that, Angie transmatted out of her ship, new outerwear appearing on the way.

- _Fallen Rose_ -

"The Vytal Festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!" Weiss Schnee remarked as the members of team RWBY made their way through the streets of Vale, which were being decorated for the aforementioned festival.

"I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much, Weiss." Ruby Rose said, frowning a little. "It's kinda weirding me out..."

"How could you not smile?” Weiss asked, turning to Ruby. “A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances! Parades! A tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into this event is simply breathtaking!" Weiss continued to gush.

Yang Xiao Long gave a huff as they resumed walking. "You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring."

“Quiet you.”

"Remind me again why we're spending our Friday afternoon visiting the stupid docks?" Yang asked, not phased by Weiss’ glare.

“It smells like fish,” Ruby complained, pinching her nose.

"I've heard that students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today. And, as a representative of Beacon, I feel as though it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom!” Weiss answered Yang’s question before walking away again.

"She wants to spy on them, so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament." Blake Belladonna corrected for Yang as they followed their white-dressed companion.

“You can’t prove that.”

“Whoa, look over there.” Ruby stopped her team and pointed down a street. At the end of it was a dust store, the windows were broken, and yellow police tape wrapped around the area. “What happened here?” Ruby asked one of the officers standing near the outer tape.

"Robbery. Second Dust shop to be hit this week. This place is turning into a jungle." He answered.

“Doesn’t help with that dust refinery raid up in Atlas recently. Who place had to be shut down, and now Vale’s copp’n the blow.”

“Raid?” Weiss asked, worry playing on her face.

“Yeah,” The first officer confirmed. “Day or so back, dust refinery was hit. Took some of the refining components, and even defeated the team of huntsmen stationed there to stop the two of them.”

“Wait, did you say, ‘the two of them’?” Blake asked.

“Yeah, apparently the rumours are that a rouge huntress and some sort of spider Faunus robbed the whole refinery by themselves.” The officer answered.

“Must have been sum’ sort’a elite White Fang Cell. Defect huntresses and all that.” His partner chimed.

“Doesn’t really matter to us who did it, but now that it’s causing a drop in Vale dust supplies, it now matters to us that it happened at all caus’ we have to clean up the scap.”

"Hmph! The White Fang, like that’s a surprise." Weiss scoffed as she folded her arms. "What an awful bunch of degenerates."

“What's your problem?” Blake asked with a soft, almost unnoticeable, glare.

“My problem? I simply don't care for the criminally insane.”

"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths. They're a collection of misguided Faunus."

“Misguided? They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!”

Blake faltered. "So then they're very misguided. Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale!"

“Hmm, Blake’s got a point...” Ruby pondered. “Besides, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago... Maybe it was him?”

“And yet, I still see no defence for them robbing that dust refinery.” Weiss pointed out. “The fact stays: The White Fang are a bunch of scum. Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal.”

“That's not necessarily true...” Yang tried to calm Weiss down.

“Hey! Stop that Faunus!” a cried sounded from the dock, distracting team RWBY.

- _Fallen Rose_ -

“ _You know, disregarding the relatively smaller buildings, a lower grade of technology and absence of Exo, I’d say this really reminds me of the last city._ ” Lantern commented from inside Angie’s head.

“I’d have to agree with you there Lant.” Angie did most certainly agree.

Walking around another bend, Angie began to see decorations spread throughout the street, and people setting even more up as others marvelled at them.

“Huh, wonder what’s going on here?” Angie asked aloud.

“ _It’s the Vytal festival, Ange._ ” Lantern provided. “ _The people of Remnant hold it to celebrate the end of the war 80 years ago, it’s called the ‘Vytal’ festival due to the name of the island where the peace treaty was signed._ ”

“Well the more you know...” Angie smiled under her white scarf whilst adjusting her red hood, the classic house of Crosses colour combination. Other than those two articles of clothing, Angie also had a set of goggles to hide her extra set of eyes, a red tunic, white undershirt, four brown gloves (with fake extra fingers), grey leggings and what she personally considered were _very_ nice boots.

She liked these boots. Cayde gave them to her.

‘Cayde...’ Angie thought, ‘Will he be okay without me? Bah, of course he will be okay, he’s Cayde.’

Angie then paused.

‘Oh, Traveller he’s Cayde!’ was all Angie managed to think before something with collided with her.

- _Fallen Rose_ -

“OOF!” both Weiss and whatever she collided with exclaimed as the air was knocked out of them.

"No, he got away!" Weiss complained.

"Uhh... Weiss?" Yang pointed to the person beneath her teammate. Weiss turned to come face-to-face with a person in a white hood, goggles and a hood scarily similar to the obnoxious red one her partner wore.

“Not to sound rude, but could you get off me?” The person asked.

“Bah!” Weiss exclaimed as she got off the person. The figure then also got up and dusted themselves off with all... four... hands.

RWBY seemed to be caught on this particular detail.

“Well,” the person began, “I can’t say this is what I had in mind when I chose to explore Vale.” She then turned to face RWBY fully. “Hello, my name is Angela, but you may call me Angie.”

She offered two hands for Ruby and Weiss to shake. Both girls tentatively returned the gesture before Angie moved to Blake and Yang, shaking their hands also.

“So! What are four young girls going running around haphazardly around the street?” Angie then asked.

“W-well, we w-were welcoming the other students to...” Weiss started, but trailed off, unable to tear her eyes away from the second set of Angie’s arms. “What we were doing was...”

“WHY DO YOU HAVE FOUR ARMS?!” Ruby suddenly shouted, pointing at Angela.

“Ruby!” her team shouted at Ruby for her brash approach. They were distracted by a giggle from Angie.

“It’s quite alright, it’s not the first time I had a comment like that. Well, it’s simply my own Faunas trait. Spider.” Angie explained.

RWBY then all synchronously relaxed at the, in hindsight rather obvious, answer.

“Well, Angie,” Ruby felt uncomfortable calling an adult a nickname, “I'm Ruby, and this is my team.” Ruby gestured to her left.

“Weiss,”

“Blake,”

“Yang,”

“Penny.”

“Yeah, so anyway, Angie, what are you doing in...” Ruby stopped as she realized something was wrong. She thought for a moment before coming to a realization:

‘There are only four people on my team! Not five!’

Ruby spun to see a ginger-haired girl in a grey dress with black leggings, neon green lines running along both.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” Ruby shouted.

“Penny!” the girl answered happily. “I already took the liberty of introducing myself as you all were. It’s a pleasure to meet you all! You as well Ms Angela.”

“Please, call me Angie.” Angie waved off.

“Okay!”

“Huh,” Ruby said simply. “Well it’s nice to meet you Penny, Angie,” Ruby nodded to them both.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too!” Penny repeated.

“You already said that.” Weiss pointed out.

“...So I did!” Penny realised, still with a chipper and exuberant attitude.

“So, what are you both doing in Vale?” Yang asked, attempting to draw the conversation out of the apparent loop it had fallen into.

“Visiting.” “Fighting in the tournament!” Angie and Penny answered respectively.

"Wait, you're fighting in the tournament?" Weiss asked, all else forgotten in the prospect of scoping out the competition.

"I'm combat ready!" Penny answered with a salute.

"Forgive me, but you hardly look the part." Weiss snarked.

“Says the girl wearing a dress.” Blake pointed out.

“Believe it or not, but I’ve seen people where weirder, huntsmen are rather expressive with their fissions sense,” Angie added.

Much like Weiss was distracted by the newly presented future competition, Ruby was distracted by this.

“You’re a Huntress?!” Ruby squealed.

Angie chuckled. “I guess you could say that...” she brushed her red cloak away to reveal four angular white revolvers, each with a card imprinted on them ranging from jack to ace, all of them being done in red.

“Wow! They’re all so pretty!” Ruby gushed. “What are they called?”

“Royal Straight.” Angie sated the red girl’s curiosity with a simple answer.

“So cool!”

Angie chuckled at Ruby. “Well it’s been nice meeting you all, but I must be going now.”

“I believe that we must as well,” Weiss nudged Ruby with her elbow.

“Oh, okay,” Ruby said sadly, having not been able to look at the huntress’ firearms further. “See you around, friends!” Ruby waved goodbye as she and her team left.

- _Fallen Rose_ -

“I can’t believe it...” Angie said to Lantern as she watched the young huntress team leave, followed by the android.

“ _Do you really think it’s possible?_ ” Lantern asked, uncertainty playing on her voice.

“Lantern, she looks like a miniature red version of Summer. There’s only one explanation for this...”

“ _Angie..._ ”

“GRANDBABY!” Angie shouted at the top of her many lungs; the sound fortunately silenced by the mask she wore under the scarf so that she didn’t draw attention.

Well, any _more_ attention.

“I have a grandbaby, Lantern! This has to be the third-best day of my second life! Right after getting married and legally adopting Summer!” It took all of Angie’s energy to stop herself from dancing in the street right then and there.

“ _Angie, do you know what this even means?_ ” Lantern asked.

“I finally get to spoil somebody without Ikora and Zavala telling me ‘stop giving her rocket launchers, it isn’t a good idea’?”

“ _...no, it means that this pretty much proves that Summer was from Remnant. And recently at that._ ”

Angie slowed to a stop.

“Ah.” Angie finally declared.

“ _So we are we telling Summer she has a daughter and was alive about fourteen years ago?_ ”

Angie thought. “...No. Not yet, anyway. We don’t know how this may affect her. And why fourteen years?”

“ _Her daughter?_ ” Lantern pointed out. “ _She’s registered at Beacon Academy, an early graduate of 14. Summer must have been here to give birth to Ruby at least that long ago, and, must have died zero to eight years after that, since Summer is seven.”_

“Oh yeah. Man, that does complicate things.” Angie commented. “But this is just even more reason we shouldn’t tell her straight away. We need to focus on getting back to Earth and rendezvous with other guardians, this would only serve to complicate things.”

“ _So no telling Summer?_ ”

“No telling Summer, yet. Come on, we should see if Summer has somewhere for us to stay.”

- _Fallen Rose_ -

Cayde 6 was currently not a happy man. Robot. Whatever!

His carefully measured footsteps practically shook the ground, frightening every guardian he passed by. Barely even waiting for the doors to slide apart and let him into the Vanguard room, he quickly moved to the table where both Ikora and Zavala were.

“What. Happened.” Cayde asked, no, demanded.

Zavala and Ikora glanced between themselves, neither wanting to break the news to Cayde. After a long silence, it was Ikora who finally spoke.

“We received a transmission from Guardians Summer Ro...”

“ **What. Happened.** ” Cayde repeated, clearly conveying that he wasn’t in any mood for beating around the bush.

Ikora took a breath before restarting. “Angela and Summer sent communication from Mercury concerning the Cabal signal blockers. Apparently, all the factions of darkness were fighting over a gigantic golden age warp gate, leading to an unknown location. When Summer’s stealth drive failed, they used the warp gate to flee the battle.

“When our scouts finally arrived there, they reported the gate reduced to rubble and all the factions pulling out. We suspect they were able to pull schematics for the gate and...”

Ikora was interrupted by Cayde’s fist slamming onto the table.

“I don’t want to know about that. I want to know Where. They. Are.”

“...We don’t know,” Zavala said.

*CRRRKKKK*

The sound of Cayde smashing a datapad against a wall lingered in the silent room. Cayde stepped back from the table with his arms up.

“I'm okay, I'm okay,” Cayde announced, calming himself before returning to the table. “So, what can we do?”

“Well, our best chance to both find Angela and Rose and stop whatever the enemies of the city plan to do with the gate schematics, is to follow the trail of whoever was heading their faction’s assault at the original gate.”

“So where do we start?” Cayde asked almost as soon as Zavala was finished talking.

“With the hive.”

All three Vanguard turned to see the owner of the new voice.

“Their magic will be the fastest in creating a functioning Gate.” Eris Morn informed. “Normally I say that the Vex would beat them in this, but the transference system is incompatible with their forms.

Zavala’s eyes narrowed. “Eris, this meeting is...”

“Vanguard only? Yes, I know. But until Lady Angela returns,” Eris stopped when she reached the table, her phantom Merlin appeared, “I am acting Templar Vanguard.”

Seeing as Eris was by all accounts correct, none of them had anything to respond to her claim.

“Well, if you can get us to wherever they went, then I don’t care who sits in that chair. Metaphorically, since someone keeps saying we don’t need them.” Cayde shot a glare to Zavala who returned it.

“Eris,” Ikora spoke up, not wanting either of her fellow vanguard to use this as a segue into their usual chair debate, “Where do you think they are building it?”

“Saturn,” Eris answered swiftly. When she didn’t elaborate, Ikora spoke again.

“Why Saturn?” She asked.

“Because of the Dreadnaught,” Eris answered again.

“Then I have an Idea.” Cayde drew everybody’s attention.

_“We capture the Dreadnaught”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Comment!


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